


House Call

by ODeorainFan2150



Series: The Townhouse [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Doctors gonna doctor, Easter Eggs and references, Gen, Injury, Moira's Dog, Some mention of medical stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-23 01:41:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15595437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ODeorainFan2150/pseuds/ODeorainFan2150
Summary: Sombra pays a visit to her favourite doctor





	House Call

It wasn’t that Sombra didn’t like dogs. It's just when it came to security, dogs were always challenging. You couldn’t hack their equipment, they could smell her despite being invisible and most of the time they would make more noise than anyone would want. In this case, the one staring her directly in the face, also couldn’t be hurt in any way. However, despite her intrusion, it seemed content to sit by the door, as still as a statue apart from the wagging tail.   
  
Sombra sat trying to stare down the Doberman when suddenly the kitchen light turned on. It shone through the patio windows, bathing the garden in soft white light. While the dog may have been giving her an impassive look, the woman who had appeared behind it had a much more emotional look on her thin face. Her thin frame cast a narrow shadow but the eyes seemed to almost glow in the darkness.   
  
“I knew asking you for help in removing this place from the world was going to come back to haunt me.” Moira sighed. She pulled her robe tighter against the cold. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Sombra, on this most charming night?”   
  
Sombra tried to pull her trademark grin, wincing slightly “It’s a social call  _ Bruja _ . I was in the area and just had to come see this lovely house you’re hiding away in”   
  
The doctor didn’t blink, instead fixing the hacker with a colder stare. “It’s nothing to do with the fact you’ve injured yourself and would prefer not to explain to anyone else what you were doing in Dublin?”   
  
Now Sombra grimaced as the doctor’s words reminded her of the pain flowing up and down her back. Falling out of the top floor window of the Trinity College science building had not been part of the plan. Something in her augment stack was sending signals in a strange way - when she tried to stand up, her legs gave way below her.   
  
With a low whistle, Moira commanded the dog to step aside and then started to walk across the frosty grass. Her long limbs seemed to encircle the smaller woman and lifted her up off the ground. Slowly, Moira helped Sombra back into the house.   
  
\---   
  
Despite the pain, Sombra could see where she was taken, half walking, half carried. Passing through the kitchen, Moira helped her down into the cellar. After being checked through a retinal scanner (hidden in a wine bottle, Sombra had to admire her host’s classic spy aesthetic with that) they found themselves in a mixture of lab and armoury. Moira’s biotic rig was sat on a frame hanging off the one wall, next to a collection of spare parts and what looked like prototypes (Sombra almost laughed at the one with tentacles hanging limply from it). A glass case on the wall seemed to have mementoes from the old days, including a Blackwatch uniform. Sombra noticed it was obviously in a stasis tube, the scratches and damage marks neither being repaired by the suit’s system or getting worse with age.   
  
The centre of the room had what an operating table, whose surface reconfigured after a few vocal commands from the doctor to resemble more of a massage bench than anything more medical. Moira helped Sombra onto it, connected up the sensor pads and then turned to start gathering her tools.   
  
“Come on, you can either take your clothes off with no damage or I’ll cut my way through them,” Moira told her patient as she continued to work through the drawers, pulling out both surgical and mechanical implements. Sombra could think of several responses to this but rather than risk angering the good doctor more, she simply obeyed, removing her coat and skin-tight underlayer. Now naked, she laid face down on the table and waited for the surgery to begin. She closed her eyes and began to relax.   
  
\---   
  
  
  
Moira finished mounting her AR eyepiece and turned back to be greeted by a sight. Fully exposed, Sombra’s cybernetic implants stretched across most of her back and up onto her head, like a second skeleton half embedded in the flesh. She could trace the age of each part based on how vivid the scar tissue around each chunk of metal was. For a moment she was tempted to run her hand down her back and feel the marvel beneath her fingers but a sound of pain from Sombra stopped her, returning focus. Work had to come first.   
  
Visual inspection revealed two augments low on her spine that seemed to have shifted out of their frames. She hates working on mechanical parts - that was always Angela's strong point. Her Swiss angel was a magician dancing between nanobots and prosthetics. Moira preferred a more elegant approach, working to make the flesh improve itself. But Moira wasn’t that much of an old dog that she hadn’t picked up a trick or two.   
  
“Sombra,” Moira calmly said in an almost hushed tone, “I need diag access to your augments, just so I can see their status”   
  
Slowly, Sombra made patterns in the air with one of her hands and that seemed to release them, as data streamed into Moira’s overlay. The new inputs confirmed her thoughts -  the two augments had been crushed on impact, disabling them without removing them properly from the core stack. Every time she tried to call core augs, the signal was short circuiting and triggering pain receptors instead. A simple issue to fix, she had plenty of replacement parts to hand.   
  
Beginning to work at the components, Moira moved carefully and precisely, removing damaged elements and extracting them where they had slipped. Her other hand applied medical gel to the damaged areas, kicking off the accelerated healing process.   
  
By the time she had replaced the malfunctioning parts, Sombra had fallen asleep. For a moment Moira considered ending her nights work there, but another diagnosis pass saw other elements in need of maintenance. Preparing her tools again, the doctor continued to work.   
  
\---   
  
Light streamed in through the curtains, easing Sombra out of her sleep. The room seemed unfamiliar, covered in artwork and photos. Her mind felt like it was rebooting, especially as it worked through the events of last night. The fall, the stumble through the streets, the doctor taking her to her basement lab, her passing out as the shining steel went to work behind her.   
  
Everything felt… different. Strangely heavy. At first, she assumed a cast or bandage but movement on her chest soon revealed another reason for her situation. The Doberman from last night had returned and was now dozing fitfully on top of her covers.   
  
A gentle knock proceeded the door opening and the arrival of Moira. She looked more rested than she had been last night, dressed in a simple shirt and black trousers. The shirt seemed to reveal something hanging around her neck but not enough for Sombra to identify it what it could be. Sombra was however surprised to see the doctor carrying in a tray in one hand from which she could smell breakfast. The aroma of coffee and bacon soon got her stomach grumbling and so she pulled herself upright. The dog, seemingly offended by the action, took its cue to pad softly out, leaving the doctor and patient alone in the room.   
  
Moira placed the tray down on the bedside table and turned to face the bed. Sombra could tell her attitude was very different from last night, her face was not pulled into the smirk or annoyed frown but instead showing ...concern?   
  
“Feeling better after last night’s adventure?” Moira asked, a little of the sarcasm creeping in, “I had to do a little digging around to fix the problem but you should be feeling a little more like yourself”   
  
Sombra reached across for the coffee and took her first sip, seemingly feeling the caffeine begin to work its magic. She fixed Moira with an almost sarcastically concerned face.   
  
“So Dr  _ Bruja _ , what was the damage? Are you going to have to take the leg?”   
  
The corners of Moira’s mouth stretched slightly with the hint of a smile but then returned to business.   
  
“Two lower spine core augments replaced, some damage where the old ones had slipped into muscle and bone. More concerning was the build-up of damaged tissue around your older augments, especially your head plate and neck link. Not really two places you want to start rotting away from the inside”   
  
Sombra paused, unsure if Moira was making a dark joke or just trying to freak her out. Her spare hand ran down the edge of her hair, feeling the line where the skin had reformed after her last upgrades. She suddenly felt bandage and tape.   
  
Moira grabbed her wrist lightly and pulled it away   
  
“I wouldn't play too much with it. The nanogel should have healed most of it but it's still delicate.” She paused before continuing, “You really should have mentioned how old some of your rig is. As a medical professional, I could have kept an eye on them before having to cut you back open.”   
  
Moira had bent lower and was looking Sombra straight in her eyes. Sombra was sure she would see her fear, leaking out of her - what else had Moira done while she was under, what little tricks had been hidden in her brain? Sombra knew the doctor wasn’t as outright terrifying as Reaper or Akande but having medically deployed leverage would fit her just right.   
  
Moira spoke slowly and plainly, all signs of sarcasm gone from her voice “it does not go well for either of us if you stop functioning 100%, my little hacker. Similarly, I know a good mind is a shame to waste, so don’t worry there are no surprises waiting for you.” she passed over Sombra’s phone from the bedside table. “Run a scan if you need.”   
  
Standing back up, Moira headed towards the door. “Your kit bag is next to the bed, I’ll be downstairs when you are ready for some lunch”. And with they she left, closing the door behind her and talking to the dog as she went.   
  
Sombra could feel something gnawing at the edge of her brain, her heart pounding in her ears, panic slowly returning. Picking up her phone she rebooted her augs, bringing her other senses back online. Relief flooded through her as a familiar logo re-appeared in her view. A quick check showed everything running fine. Access logs showed Moira’s diagnostic work being granted access and then disabling itself several hours later. Systems checks revealed no changes, other than the replacement modules. But everything moved more cleanly, her back not thrumming with the usual pain as she pulled herself out of bed   
  
Slowly, Sombra pulled her bag across the room and selected her outfit for the day. Something dress down rather than the usual mission gear. After all, she was recovering and needed to spend time relaxing away from it all.   
  
\---   
  
Sombra found Moira sat in her kitchen with a sheaf of papers spread across the table and a coffee cup warming her hand.   
  
“I’m surprised curiosity didn’t get the better of you,” Moira said without looking up from the paper in front of her, “I thought you would have taken the opportunity to look around my house and gather blackmail material”   
  
“I wouldn’t do that, you know where the sharp pointy objects are,” Sombra responded before becoming more serious “and you saved me having to come begging for help with my back”   
  
This caused Moira to look up   
  
“What I mean to say is thank you” Sombra finished, the shield of confidence that she normally crouched behind momentarily dropped.   
  
The corners of Moira's mouth lift slightly and she nodded, “Anything to help. I recommend staying until most of the surgery marks have healed up, shouldn’t take more than a day or two.”   
  
“Of course  _ Mujer Sabia _ ” Sombra responded, pulling her phone out of her pocket “it will give me plenty of time to ask you about this”   
  
The phone was carefully slid across the tabletop, the screen filled with a photo. It took Moira a second to realise what it showed but then she blanched, turning paler than usual.   
  
Sombra’s grin had returned to her face. “You don’t have to go hunting for blackmail when you leave me in a room with your university photos on display - I think the star on the face suits you perfectly, Dr Bowie,” she said, trying hard not to laugh as Moira’s face fell.   
  
This trip to Ireland was going to be more fun than she had planned.

**Author's Note:**

> Phew, this was a fun one to write.
> 
> Apologies for the google translate Spanish words.
> 
> EDIT: Minor edits on 29/09/18 to improve readability
> 
> If you like this work, I love hearing your comments - I'll always try and respond! Alternatively, drop me an email at odeorainfan2150@gmail.com
> 
> Follow me on twitter at https://twitter.com/deorainfan2150 for news on what I'm working on next.
> 
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